


Lost Love Leaves Little Room for Inaction

by mosaicofdreamsanddragons



Series: There Are an Awful Lot of Time Travelers Running Around in this Timeline [2]
Category: Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活 | Re:Zero Starting Life in Another World (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Alternate Universe, Major Spoilers for the SlothIf/RemIf route, Major spoilers for the first season of re zero, SlothIf/RemIf!Rem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28687290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosaicofdreamsanddragons/pseuds/mosaicofdreamsanddragons
Summary: Natsuki Rem lived a long and full life (true). She has no regrets (lie). She died (???).She is in the past(true). She's not going to change anything (LIE, LIE, LIE).Also known as SlothIf!Rem is going to save her sister, somehow.
Relationships: Natsuki Subaru & Rem, Natsuki Subaru/Rem (past)
Series: There Are an Awful Lot of Time Travelers Running Around in this Timeline [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2102631
Comments: 16
Kudos: 63





	1. Youth Does Not Ease the Aches of a Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Reader 67 who requested this
> 
> For those who have not read the SlothIf stories: Rem and Subaru ran away together in episode 18, the move to the country of Kararagi (which has a far more Japanese based culture). Tia and Halibel are their friends and Rigel and Spica are their children.
> 
> SPOILERS FOR REM IF and related stories

The first thing she realized was she was no longer holding her husband’s hand. She noticed this before the sudden vertigo of being upright, before the cool breeze and warm sun that did not belong inside at her sickbed, before the sounds of constant chatter of the streets and the steady strong thump of her heart. That hand was all she had left to anchor her in a world so full of pain as her organs slowly shut down from the exhaustion of a long life and its loss filled her thoughts.

And before the panic could rise in her throat she realized another thing, the pain was gone too. All of it. Every ache and pain, every labored breath, every old creak in her body, gone. Vanished with the touch of her husband. She reached out to see what she could feel and found her hands gripping the rough fibers of a woven basket with the faint smell of appas. The memories brought her to her time as a girl in Lugnica, back when she had…

To brush off the impending memories she opened her eyes. The sunlight temporarily blinded her vision but then, then she…

…she opened her eyes to Lugnica. The streets, the clothing, the merchants around, even the accent on the air all screamed of her long ago home and the days of her youth. So many times she’d come to this market with her sister to gather supplies they could not find in the village beside the mansion. With with…with the older maid to supervise and then by themselves and then with Emilia and then…her eyes fell upon a boy standing in front of the appa stand, not looking at her. Black hair, strange clothes, so young he could pass for her youngest grandchild, but that look in his eyes is so old. 

It had been so long since she’d seen him like this, with eyes too old for his soul, that she couldn’t help but go “Subaru-kun, what’s the matter?” And then she felt the echoes of a memory, details faded but not forgotten swell insider her. _This has happened before._

“Rem,” he said as if seeing her for the first time. And oh. That look combined with her name. She knew when she was. This was the day her husband would propose to her. She’d heard of people experiencing flashbacks upon their death, and she remembered this moment vividly, for she saw it in her dreams every night those first few years. A dream, that explained so much, why she couldn’t feel his hand in hers, why she was back in this memory, why there was no pain.

“Yes, I’m you Rem,” she slowly approached him hoping to check him over, it may be a dream, but that expression gave rise to old fears. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice the crowd is tiering you isn’t it?” she knew from years of experience that when Subaru has that look in his eyes, he needed to be far away from any sort of commotion. 

“Tired?” he said, sweating as she placed her hand on his. He was warm, but not alarmingly so. This was stress alone. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said gripping her hand – it felt real, warm and full of new callouses, not like a dream at all, not like it had when she’d held it as she’d fallen asleep, “I’m out of energy, worn down, I’m tired.” 

And her hand, her hand had no wrinkles. No marks of age. They are young and she is young and she lets out a small gasp at the revelation as to where her old pains and aches had truly gone. But before she can say anything before she can truly come to terms with the revelation her too-young husband grabbed her hand - soft and missing the callouses he’d gained later in life - knocking the basket that she’d been holding to the floor, and rushed through the town. 

Her feet were pounding on the floor, real and young and fast, faster then she’d been in years and she marveled at their swiftness. Every footstep on the cold firm pavement sent reverberations through her body like only something solid could, something that did not belong to a dying dream. She could breathe too, breath so full of life, so different from the gasps she’d only been able to manage in the end there. She glanced at her husbands retreating back, opening her mouth to marvel at their predicament when she noticed that he was not so lucky as her. 

He was gasping, horribly. She knew enough from raising children, from teaching, from watching her husband that those gasps meant he should stop. But he did not stop. Then she would stop him, “Subaru-kun,” she yells. He stops and she pulls her too-young hand back. Still feeling the touch, the warm, real, soft, touch. Her somehow-young again husband turns to her face full of fear and exhaustion. She wants to scream, wants to ask him how this happened and why, wants to ask if he too is back in their past but she knows he can’t take it right now. Not when he looks like this.

_“Look Mom, Halibel says the first thing any shinobi does when in an unknown location is find a place to regroup!”_

A place to regroup, that would do them both some good. Somewhere out of the way. There really was only one place she remembered well in this part of the city, the place that held enough memories she could still find the way, the spot where her husband had proposed. So she headed to that rooftop, her feet remembering the way while she marveled again at the solid thunk of her very-much-alive-and-young feet against the cobblestones, while her husband followed numbly behind her. She wracked her brain for some sort of answer. She’d died. Died surrounded by her family and friends. Why was she back then?

_It smelled of Subaru, but more intense then he’d ever smelled. No, this wasn’t him. This was the scent of the witch._

_“No regrets?” came a cool voice. “There is nothing you would change?”_

She had no regrets. Right? Nothing she would change. 

A voice snapped her from her thoughts, “Sorry about that, I was feeling kinda stressed so I skipped out on explaining,” her young-again husband says in his joking manner he used to lie, “Sorry.”

“Really, you mustn’t do that,” she replied in the cheerful voice she used to lie, “I realize that you are giving a great deal of thought to our situation.” But not as much as she was giving to it right now. “But I don’t dislike it when you are so forceful.” _Ahh good memories._

“Not to worry I’m fine now,” even if she couldn’t see the look in his eyes she knew the expression on his face. The expression that had haunted her anxieties, wide eyes unseeing, full of desperation. For if he’d chosen her out of desperation, how much could he really love her? But now, seeing it again, she wondered if it had been more than that. If this desperation, this brokenness came from him knowing he could not save anyone else. Watching him, knowing what they would fail to do, she thought she understood more. “I guess you’ve seen me just being pathetic, depressed all the time.”

“But I get it now,” he continued leaning back into a stretch. 

“You get it now?” she leaned in, for a second, a split second she had wondered if this was her Subaru, her husband who was back in the past with her

But instead he continued in the script of her memories, stretching out as if the casualness of his actions could detract from his eyes. “I’ve bothered a lot of people with all my complaining and agonizing, but I finally figured out how to take care of everything.” He turned to face her and she could see those old, weary eyes she hadn’t seen in so long. “Or when I really think about it…” he couldn’t keep the eye contact and instead raised a finger to tap his head as if that would compensate for its loss “..I was told what to do from the very start.”

She smiled at him, even knowing what would come. She remembered this moment. Expectation grew within her. “But I don’t know when to give up…” he said.

“But I think that is what’s so wonderful about you,” she found herself interrupting the script. She remembered the night their son was born. She remembered how he’d gone off to save Tia, the hero she’d loved finally back in full sway. 

_That night he’d had the look in his eyes he’d had when he faced the malbeasts with her, the night she’d fallen in love with him. That night when he’d saved her and Ram._

_Ram who had needed to be saved but they hadn’t been there to save her._

His voice pulled her back from her flashback as he shuffled his feet but continued with the script, “Things I’ve realized and been forced to realize…all kinds of experiences have brought me here…” What had brought them here? She hadn’t liked to remember these times, so saturated they were with memories of those she lost. There had been an election coming, Emilia had been in it, there had been the malbeast attack after finding Subaru, some sort of fight that had resulted in them staying with with…Crusch – how had she forgotten Crusch? – and then her young love had reacted so terribly to something, something only he knew of which had prevented them from dying with her home and sister. She glanced over at him, but her young husband was looking at the sky so he could not see the look in Rem’s eyes, “but I’ve actually had the answer for a long time.” He brough his head down so his ferocious gaze could meet hers. “I’ve decided, Rem,” and oh, her heart did a little flutter. 

“Yes?” she said, knowing full well what he would say as he held out his hand in an invitation. 

“Run away with me. As far as we can go.” There it was. The proposal she’d received all those years ago.

_But…I…_

_…I don’t want to go._

He mistook her confusion for confusion about his proposal. “I’m going to leave the capital, to head far west,” Kararagi where Halibel will live beside them, where Tia will met them, where their kids will be born. “Or maybe north…”

“Um…” she said. Her mind still reeling, she didn’t want to go. Why? Why did she not want to go?

_When her son is born she’d voiced her fears to her husband, “Being a good child…a good little sister! I couldn’t be either of those…and I wondered…could I really be a…parent.” In that moment she’d confessed her anxieties and he his. Then she’d asked him, “Subaru….do you regret it?”_

_“That’s not...it. Rem, I don’t regret it. I…I’ve been saved.”_

He kept on regardless, “I heard no one can enter the southern kingdom, so it’s one of those two. I don’t like cold weather,” he shoved a finger at her face snapping her out of her thoughts, “so I’d personally recommend west.” She let her hair fall over her eyes so he could not see how much turmoil she was in, she didn’t want him to experience the same fear she had back in her early days. But she needed to do something, to say something. 

“Ah, um,” she said leaning forward, she was going to do this she was, she was going to…

The boy who would grow into her husband kept on talking in his too-cheerful voice that he used to bury more ridiculous suggestions in white noise so an opponent could find no way to disagree. He’d used that so many times for his final job when he wanted to keep someone from asking to many questions about where he’d gotten the idea for the latest festival. “Honestly, it could be a long journey, and I know this is a snap decision, so it won’t be easy …” It hadn’t been. The journey had been long and they had no supplies. And that wasn’t even accounting for the emotional toll on them both. He’d cried every night, so plagued by nightmares she couldn’t understand, she’d thrown herself into caring for him letting her own nightmares go unnoticed. 

“P-Please wait!” she cut him off and in doing so, cut off her own memories of what the next few days would bring. She needed time…

_Spica’s oldest child looked up at her expectantly holding open the book of number problems far above the level she taught. Unable to give the answer her grandchild wanted she instead said, “What do you think the answer is?” while she frantically tried to figure out how to solve this advanced homework._

…so she stalled. “The way you said that makes it sound as if you plan to go to some other country that isn’t Lugnica…” she pulled her hand back towards herself and let some of her confusion and concern slip out. He saw and the slight concern in his eyes, reminded her of all the times he’d had that look before, all those times he’d reached out to help her. That was it, together, they could do anything, make any of his crazy dreams come true. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Knowing you, it must be because you’ve had another great idea! Something that will help Lady Emilia and Lord Roswaal!” she claps her hands together and closes her eyes, letting herself hope against hope she is not alone. 

Her eyes being closed helped her hide the pain his next words, “That’s not what this is, Rem,” until she could open them in surprise that was only half-genuine. “There’s nothing I can do in the capital. But I’d be just as powerless if I went back to the mansion.” His face contorted like he was crying but there were no tears, “That’s what I figured out.” He could not meet her eyes, “So run away with me, Rem. We can’t stay here. That’s what everyone has been telling me. I didn’t want to believe it, so I’ve denied it with all my might, but… Yeah they’re right.”

Powerlessness, it was a feeling she remembered all too well as a girl, during every nightmare her husband had, and when she’d learned of her sister’s death. She hated that feeling. But then, then she’d had….

“No one ever needed me.” She recoiled from that like a physical blow. She had needed him. She had needed him so badly back then, during the very first proposal. She needed him when they struggled to find a living in a strange land. She had needed him when she’d gotten pregnant and had nearly been murdered. She needed him because together they could do anything, together they were not powerless. 

“That’s not…” 

“It is true!” he yelled, “It’s been spelled out for me, over and over. That’s why I’ve decided to just disappear. It’s for the best. …”

_Eight years after this day she’d asked Subaru if he’d regretted it again. He’d told her he didn’t with such sincerity, tried to comfort away all the insecurities she might have about her place in his heart. She’d told him how much she loved him, how happy he made her. How anxious she was that he’d disappear. All of that was true. But there was more. He’d never realized, and she hadn’t had the heart to tell him, why she’d asked the question. He’d assumed she’d asked because she feared he had regrets. He never realized she’d asked because she had them. Not of him, never for loving him, but for not saving her sister, that her two beautiful children would grow up without their aunt._

“…Anything I do will just lead to a dead body…or maybe more, depending on what happens.” She hadn’t known until so much later what happened back at the mansion. She had known her sister was dead, that she knew for sure, but how, where, and why, those were all questions that were not answered. Not until one day when she’d overheard some news about the number of candidates had decreased by one. 

_“Lost one to the Witch Cult, I heard,” the appa merchant was saying. She’d been watching out of the corner of her eyes because she couldn’t afford the fruit, instead trying to choose between two cheaper options at the next stall over. “Sure is doing the people’s job for ‘em, are there even going to be any candidates left at this rate?”_

_“Oh please,” said the customer. “She was a witch, she wouldn’t have been chosen anyway.”_

_Emilia._

_Rem dropped her bag._

_It caught the customer’s attention. “Aren’t you from Lugnica?” he said glancing over at her. “Were you there when it happened?”_

_“No,” she choked out. “We left right before, just missed it.” And she had picked up her fallen bag, dirtied food to precious to waste, knowing in her heart her sister was dead. The Witch Cult left no survivors._

_She knew that much._

“I’ve had enough. Let’s run Rem. You and I can’t stay here. We shouldn’t be in this country!”

“But this is so sudden…” she said coyly, hoping to diffuse some of the urgency in the air, give herself some time to breath to thing, to drive off the emotions of learning of her sister’s death with the logic she’d used for 70 years. 

It did not work, and her future husband’s urgency seemed to grow, “We don’t’ have time! I’m sorry its sudden, I really am. I really, really am.” His grip on his jacket tightened around his heart and she could hear the distress in his face. “But you have to choose.

_Choose_

“Choose?” She didn’t want to choose again, didn’t want to choose between the life she had and the life she could make.

“Me? Or someone else?” The question she’d always feared asking him. The closest he’d ever come to asking her about what she left behind. 

_Me or your sister?_

_A life in Karagari or a life in Lugnica?_

_Rigel once asked her, “Mom, why do you only have one horn when all the other oni have two?” She hadn’t known how to answer him._

_“How could you ever understand!” Spica had yelled in a tweenage fit, “You were an only child!”_

_“Do you have any regrets?” her voice mingling with her husbands and a cold voice so like Emilia’s but so different._

“Choose”

_I…I chose…._

“Let’s get a dragon-drawn carriage and head west. We’ll leave Lugnica and go far west…To Kararagi, was it?” They arrived by night on a carriage, the people there had been so kind, so willing to help two lost souls, “We’ll buy a little house and live there together.” Their first apartment, wrecked by Tia, their second between her and Halibel, the next one big enough for every member of their family, cuddled in the main room all together. She’d loved to watch Tia and Rigel fight over who got which mat. “Even if bad things happen, I can keep going if you’re there.” She’d almost been murdered the day she learned she was pregnant. She’d gained and lost a friend. But she’d had him to lean on and he had her. “Just having someone waiting at home for me with a smile, no matter how tired I am, if I know you’re waiting for me, I know….” The look in his eyes on the day their son had been born, a look she hadn’t seen since they fought the malbeast, a look that could do anything. And he had. He’d gone out and brought Tia home so she could meet little Rigel. That look, was so different from the one in the eyes of the man before her. 

_He said, in response to if he regrated it, “I’ve always been running. I threw away everything and ran away with you…when I heard that we had a child, I was happy, and that’s when I was saved, Even after running and running with my back turned, there was something I could have. And that was…our child.”_

“Please choose me!” and he bowed to her. She hadn’t known, not until a year in Karagari, what that deep a bow meant. Now she did. And she knew that, “If you choose me, I’ll give you all that I have!”

_You did._

_We lived a good life._

“So please… Run away with me. Live with me!”

_But I want to make a better one._

_One without any regrets._

“Subaru-kun.” His face lights up “…I cannot run away with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does anyone know how to make these end notes stop going automatically to the end of work instead of staying on the first chapter?


	2. I know you (I knew you)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rem remembered that it had taken two years and the birth of their first child for her husband to remember he was to the hero he'd once been. 
> 
> Now she only has twenty minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are spoilers for REM IF. I tried to be vague but its still there. 
> 
> Rigel (Rem and Subaru's son) is trained by Halibel as a shinobi (though they do not tell his mom). I figured such an opportunity would be extended to Spica (Rigel's much younger sister) when she got older. I also figured Rem would catch on eventually.
> 
> Subaru eventually gets a job working with organizing festivals in their town, as much time has passed from where the novel ends I gave him a promotion.

“We’re supposed to laugh together, as we talk about he future, remember?” It hurt, she had made her choice but it still hurt to reject him, to leave the life she’d loved and prepare for a different one.

“Maybe we can’t laugh now, but you know, once, we actually get moving I bet we can…” her no-longer-husband said advancing on her with terror she’d so often seen in her own eyes. 

She could not stand that look in his eyes, that desperate tone. She could not stand to look at her broken not-husband like this. She needed to do something. 

_“The second thing a shinobi does when alone in dangerous place is to gather allies,” Spica had told her, when questioned about why she’d recruited her brother and father to tell her she was following her brother’s footsteps as a shinobi._

“I have thought about it, too,” she said cutting him off, he startled at the words and she let her eyes unfocus as the memories washed over her. “We would arrive in Kararagi and rent a place to stay. As long as we had a home and work, we would get by somehow…” Those early days had been hard, so hard. Two refugees with no one but each other, one with no marketable skills or trade. But they’d had each other every step of the way. Every tight meal, every scramble for rent money, every step of that journey west, they had each other. Subaru encouraging her after a disastrous first day of teaching, her encouraging him as he came back from the job search with no luck again. Long nights teaching her already exhausted husband how to read more words so he could find a job better than the manual labor he had. 

“…We would work together. And one we had enough money, perhaps we could buy a house. Maybe we could even open a shop. After all, Kararagi is a thriving commercial area. I’m sure we could earn a living on one of your fanciful ideas.” That had been the career of their first grandchild, she’d been so proud. 

“And once our jobs were on track…” Because this time they would not have Rigel when they could barely feed themselves…she could feel her cheeks heating and drew her hands up to cover it. “Um, it’s embarrassing to say, but we could have a child. It would be half-demon and half-human, so I’m certain it would be feisty.” Little Rigel who always found trouble despite his best efforts, little Spica who would actively seek out the trouble, every single one of their grandchildren… 

“Whether we have a boy or a girl, twins or even triplets, I know they would be adorable.” Spica’s first set had been triplets, and her most recent set of great grandchildren had been twins, one pink one blue. No one else had known where the pink gene had come from but her and Subaru. “I’m sure it wouldn’t be all fun times. And not everything would work out as I imagined…” _remembered_ “…it. We might have only daughters and no sons, so you might not feel very proud of your family.” She knew that had been a sour spot for her own father even with Ram’s abilities, and when she’d whispered that fear to her husband the night after Rigel’s first child was born and then she’d seen fire in his eyes…

“Rem…” his voice cut her off, eyes still down cast with no hint of fire.

She was losing him. A quick motion to catch his eye, and words to catch his ears “But…but…Even when the children grow and reach the age where they start to treat you coldly, I shall still be on your side! We will be famous in the neighborhood as a couple of old lovebirds, as we take our time spending life together and growing old….” They had, they had a wonderful life, the envy of every young couple dreaming of that connection. Life had been hard but good, and through its surprises they had weathered with the certainty that no matter what they would still have the other at the end. It had been a good life…

“Rem…” the sound of his voice broke through her remembering of a future once certain now in flux.

She hesitated but continued. She needed to tell the end of their life, to say goodbye in a way, to the certainties and familiarities of what had been. “I would feel bad for doing it to you, but I would prefer to die before you, if possible. I want to die quietly, lying on our bed, with your hand in mine, surrounded by our children and their children. To say, “I was so happy,” as you all look on. I could end my life happily, so happily if you…” And she had been happy, so happy. But…

Her-not-husband shook his head, “If you want it that badly, then…” How to explain to him the rest? The unresolved guilt, the fear of losing yet another, the sense of helplessness all that had been present alongside the happy times? How to tell him without breaking him further?

“If you” _and I_ “could wish for that future with a smile, I would be truly happy to die that way…As long as I could live with you. Just knowing that you want me with you when you run away makes me happy, from the bottom of my heart.” _Keep your voice smooth and even, if he sees you hesitate you will lose him again._ “But I cannot. Because I know that if we run away together now, I would be leaving behind the Subaru-kun that I love most.” _And I don’t have the time to wait for him to reappear, not this time, not if we are to save them._

And she found the strength to ask him what she’d never had the courage to ask before. “Subaru, please tell me what happened.” What happened to him? What was running from, all those years ago? What was he running from now?

But he was already shaking his head even now with no answers to give. She could still work with this. “If you cannot, please trust me. I swear I shall do something to make it right.” _Somehow._ “But for now, at least, we should go back. If we take our time, and consider things calmly, maybe we will find a different answer.”

He scrunched up his face, hiding from an invisible hurt. “I’ve already agonized over this. I’ve thought about it. I’ve suffered. That’s why I gave up.” And the look in his eyes, too old, to hurt, told her this was true, even if she could not figure out when, she had to know it was true. Somehow he’d suffered horribly trying to stop what was coming.

“It’s easy to give up,” For what had their flight all those years ago been but giving up? “but…”

“It’s easy to give up?” he said in a desperate and disbelieving voice.

“Subaru?” she said in shock.

“Don’t give me that!” he hissed voice steadily raising until he was shouting, “There’s nothing easy about giving up!” his voice broke as he chocked in air. “You think I’m just doing nothing, thinking about nothing, cutting myself off from everything, and throwing everything away! And that’s all it took to give up?!” he dropped his hands but continued his tirade. “… It was so much easier for me to think there was something I could do! But there’s nothing I can do. There’s no way out! The only path everything leads to is giving up!” he gestured to her, so earnestly, so desperate. Like he was not the man who stood up to one with the powers of a great spirit to save a friend who’d tried to murder him. He needed to believe this, she realized, he need to believe there was no path forward. “If I could do something, I would…I would…” But this was not a truth she could accept. There had to be another path, and together they would find it because…

“Subaru,” she said solemnly. “It is easy to give up. But it doesn’t suit you.” _Not then, not now_ “I do not know what painful things you’ve been through, or what you have done to make you suffer so. And I know it would be wrong of me to thoughtlessly say I understand.” Because how could she understand those nightmares that plagued him all his life? “But…but even so…there is something that I do know. I know that you’re someone who cannot give up on something halfway through.” _Because it would destroy you, killing you slowly until Rigel brough back our hope, and even then, even then…_ “I know that you are someone who can smile when you talk about your wishes for the future. I know….I know that you are someone who cannot give up on the future.”

“You’re wrong,” he said, and he looked…scared. Slowly backing up as if the very idea of his own heroic nature terrified him. “I’m not that kind of…”

She looked at the man who fought a malbeast without any training in fighting. She looked at the man who had stood before great spirits and their defeaters alike. She looked at the one who had struggled his way from a manual laborer who could barely read to the head of festivals.

“I’m not wrong. You haven’t given up on anyone. Not Lady Emilia or Sister.” _If you had, if I had, then it would not have hurt so much for so long. And now, I need you back on your feet to save them both and…._ “Or Lord Roswaal, or Lady Beatrice, or anyone else”

“I have…” he glanced around like he could run from her. “I have given up! Carrying it all was impossible from the start! My hands are so small, that it all slipped through my fingers, leaving nothing.” 

_Rigel once caught a fish in the pond. He’d been so happy but his small hands couldn’t hold the water to transport it. Subaru had laughed before cupping his two big hands around Rigel’s small ones and slowly leading him to a nearby bucket._

She could do that for him, together they could keep it all from slipping out. “No, that isn’t true. You have…”

“What do you know?!” 

_I know what it is to give up and I know the regret that never leaves it. But most importantly…_

_I know you._

“What do you know about me??” he screamed at her, slamming his fist against the wall in anger. “This is the kind of man I am!”

_No it wasn’t, not back then, not now. And I was too young to see it once, but now…_

“I have no strength, but I want it all. I have no knowledge, but all I do is dream. There’s nothing I can do, but struggle in vain! I…I…I hate myself!”

_As have I, before you came into my life, and after…_

_Oh._

She was such a fool. 

She knew what self-hatred felt like, she’d known for so long before she’d met Subaru. She should have realized sooner that the guilt and regret had been festering and growing into something stronger, something she’d held in the back of her mind and had grown on her soul until she’d taken a deal with the monster of her childhood. She’d never been able to shake that guilt and regret of leaving her loved ones to die. But she hadn’t. Had danced around the word until she heard it from her not-husband’s lips. She hated herself for leaving. Had he hated himself for leaving too?

Subaru continued talking, unaware her distress was from anything other than his tirade, “…I’m empty. There’s nothing in me at all! I know that. Yeah, that’s obvious. I know its obvious. Before I came here…” she hid a gasp because he never talked of his past ever, it jolted her from her thoughts and she listened with rapt attention.

“Before I got into the situation that led me to all of you, do you have any idea what I did? I did nothing. I’ve never done a single thing. I had all that time, all that freedom, I could have done anything, but I never did a thing. And this is the result! What I am now is the result! All of my powerlessness, all of my incompetence, is the product of my rotten character. Wanting to accomplish something, when I’ve never done anything, goes beyond the limits of arrogance!” She knew he wasn’t talking to her but that stung. Arrogance to wish for a brighter future even after running away? No, no that could not be so. “…The cost of my laziness and all the wasteful habits in my life just ends up killing both you and me.” 

That, that was…an odd way of phrasing things. They weren’t dead. At least he wasn’t or did he know, but no. He couldn’t. She’d already established that. Then why? Did he mean they would die if they did not continue on this path? Was he referring to self-hatred as a type of death, something that they would both share going forward? No that was to abstract… Could he be back? Back and struggling with this all those long years, having given up on a brighter future they could build? 

He continued to rant about his failures, until a phrase caught her ears and brought her to the present, musings of moments before shoved back into her mind, “At heart, I’m just a small cowardly filthy piece of trash, who’s always worried about how others see me.” No. That was not his heart. She knew his heart, he’d given it to her all those years ago. “And nothing…nothing about me has changed!” he finally stopped for breath. “I knew it all along. That all of it was my fault. I’m the lowest of the low. I absolutely hate myself.”

_But I…_

The words flowed from her so fast she didn’t even think on them. “I know that no matter how deeply you have fallen into darkness, you still have the courage to reach out your hand. I love it when you stroke my hair. I feel as if we can understand each other though the contact between your hand and my hair.” His hands on her head as she lay in that bed, tired and aching. He carefully brushed her gray hairs from her head as he gazed down at her that morning, opening his mouth… “I love your voice. Just hearing you say one word makes my heart feel warmer.” He’d told her the kids had come over today, all of them, and he’d call them up when she was ready. “I love your eyes. Normally, they look stern, but when you’re being kind to someone, I love the way they soften.” His eyes had been so soft and so sad, and she’d known he knew too, that this was the last day. “I love your fingers. For a boy, you have such lovely fingers. But when they clutch mine, I know they are the strong, slender fingers of a man.” She’d only had the strength to open her hand but he’d known immediately what she wanted and placed his hand in hers, giving it a squeeze. She’d squeezed back and he’d nodded, no words needed between them. “I love the way you walk. When we walk together, I love the way you occasionally turn, to make sure I keep up.” He’d gotten up and gone to the door, she could not join him then but still, he’d turned his head to make sure she could see him, see that he wasn’t going anywhere as he went to call up the rest of the family.

“Stop…” he said but she could not hear him over the flood of memories rising.

“I love the way you look when you sleep.” He’d tried to stay up all day with her, but he was old too and had fallen asleep, hand still intertwined with hers. “You look unguarded, like an infant, and your eyelashes are on the long side.” That was the first time she’d seen him without worry-lines and deep sadness since she’d gotten sick, the first time in a long time he’d fallen asleep before her. “When I touch your cheek, you calm down.” Even though he slumbered she had felt him stir. I had taken all her strength to touch the head that lay beside her but she had managed to stroke his face. “And when I playfully touch your lips, you don’t even notice and it makes my heart ache terribly.” And in that moment she knew there would be no more words, no more kisses, no more moments watching him sleep. For he would wake and find her gone. “I love you.” She had slipped her hand back in his and closed her eyes. 

“Why?”

“When you said that you hate yourself, it made me want to tell you all the wonderful things I know about you.” All the wonderful things from the life we shared once. The little things that lasted from the beginning to the end.

“That was all phony. You just don’t know me!” _No I do, I …did..._ “I know myself better than anyone!”

“All you know is yourself! How much do you know about the Subaru that I see?” she could feel herself crying now because she was alone, alone, alone, and this boy was not the man she loved, who had held her hand as she greeted death. Those times were gone, truly gone, and the man she’d shared them with would never know, could never know and doubted there very existence.

She loved him and that hadn’t been enough, not now not then. She loved him and he loved her but she could not make him love himself…

“Why…do you like me so much?” he whimpered. “I’m weak and small. I’m running away. Just like I ran away last time! So why?”

…But she could tell him why. 

“Because you are my hero, Subaru!” And from her lips spilled another memory, so different from the last, faded with time but not faded in meaning. “In that dark forest, when I didn’t even know who I was anymore and I couldn’t think of anything but violently lashing out, you saved me…” She remembered that with striking clarity as she remembered the helplessness of moments after, the shock and hope of watching someone stand before the impossible to save her. And then succeeded. She would never forget the warmth coming from him as she’d checked him over and then…“When you woke up, you smiled, and said the words I wanted to hear most, when I wanted to hear them most, from the one I wanted most to hear them from.” How to explain how he’d filled her world with warmth, lit it up like the sun, brought movement and motion and time… “My time has been stopped for so long. Ever since that fiery night, the night I lost everything except my sister…,” Ram, because even when time had stilled she’d still had Ram. “…my time has been stopped. It was you who melted my frozen heart, and kindly made my stopped time begin to move forward again! I’m sure you have no idea how you saved me, or how happy I was that moment, on that morning.” She’d been so happy, happier then when he’d proposed, happier than any moment after, because then she had been young with not guilt upon her soul. It was a feeling she had cherished, still cherished. “That’s why I believe. No matter what painful things happen, even when it looks like you’ll lose, when no one else in the world believes in you, when you don’t even believe in yourself, I will believe!” and she drew his kneeling form into a hug. “That the Subaru who saved me is a true hero.” And she planted a kiss on his forehead . He went limp and she gently pushed him back so he could kneel on his own. 

“No matter how hard I tried,” he whispered, “I couldn’t save anyone.”

“I am here,” she gently reminded him. “The Rem you saved is right here.” 

“I’ve never done anything. I’m empty,” he continued as if he had not heard her, “No one will ever listen to me.”

“I am here. I will listen to anything you have to say. I want to.” _I want to listen to you, this you._

“No one expects anything of me. No one believes in me. I hate myself.” That would not do.

She cupped his face and lifted it up to meet her eyes, “Well, I love you, Subaru!” she whispered with tears in her eyes. _Even now I love you._

“You really don’t mind that it’s me?” And something in her heart broke a bit to hear the insecurities that had so often plagued her heart.

“I want it to be you. I would not want it to be anyone else. If you cannot forgive yourself, for being empty and having nothing, then let us start from here, right now.” And she stood up and stepped back, and he followed her motions.

“Start what?”

“Just like you started my time for me, when it was stopped, we will make the time that you feel is stopped for you begin to move again. Let us start here. From square one. No, from zero!”

His eyes widened and he looked at her with the awe he’d had the day she’d accepted his proposal. Like he was drowning and she was pulling him to shore. But this time the hope alighting in his chest was not the desperation of one who needed to know they had some justification for running. For this hope, this hope had him straighten up, instead of hunch over, had resolve over take his features and that bright hope in his eyes held no trace of guilt or regret.

She had gotten through to him!

“If it’s too hard for you to walk alone, I will hold you up. As we walk, we will share the burden and support each other. Wasn’t this what you said to me that morning? Show me how awesome you can be, Subaru.” She felt her hair fall over her face as she hid the relief she felt, and something, something she hadn’t felt in a long time whispering of growing danger. She looked up again at her hero. “Yes?”

“I love…”

_“I love you more than anyone else in the world. You’re the only one for me, and I’m the only one for you.”_

“…Emilia”

“yes”

“I want to see Emilia smile. I want to help to Emilia’s future…” Each word sent a stab into her heart greater than any of the aches of her old body and any wound she’d taken in battle. She…she should have known this was too good to be true.

_If someone offers you what you want up front, beware the catch,” Rigel had said. She’d scolded him then, both for trying to use this as an excuse to pawn an unwanted chore onto his sister and for looking at the world in such a harsh way, so different from the kindness she’d found when they’d first arrived as beggars in a strange city. He’d protested that Halibel had said it first and she…_

_…should have remembered Halibel dealt with far more dangerous people then she. Should have headed his warnings when making deals with the witch._

“…Its okay if she doesn’t understand. I just want to save her. If there’s a bleak, painful future waiting for her, I want to take her away to a future where we can all laugh together!” as he walked forward and held out his hand she realized he was right, for her and for him. “Will you help me? I can’t do anything alone. I lack in everything. I’m not confident that I can even keep walking straight. I’m weak, fragile, and small. So, to make sure I keep walking straight, to help me realize when I’m wrong, will you help me?” _I wanted this, I wanted this, I wanted to ignite that spark in him again. I can’t let this hurt drag me down, not when he’s finally my hero again._

She needed to pull herself from this state and move forward, a joke seemed the best way. “You are a cruel man, Subaru. You ask all this of someone you just rejected?”

“Hey, its also hard for me to ask this of the one who rejected my once-in-a-lifetime proposal.” Oh. She hadn’t thought about it like that. But he was already laughing and she found the mirth contagious. 

Then she gave a proper curtsy, like she hadn’t done since she’d really been the girl she was now. Since she’d accepted his proposal all those no-longer years ago. “I humbly accept, If it will help you, my hero, greet the future with a smile, then yes.”

“Yeah, just watch. You get a afront row seat…” and he pulled her into a hug. “To see the man you fell for become the most awesome hero ever!” she couldn’t help it. It was all too much, the rejection, the success, the knowledge that there was no going back now. They were going to save them all. Emilia and Lord Roswaal, and Beatrice, and Ram…Ram who had been with her for all the time her heart had been frozen, who was all she’d had after losing everything the first time. She would save her. She was going to save her sister. She and her hero, together. 

_It will be worth it._

_It has to be._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates are going to be hopefully more consistent going forward, but given that school is starting I'm going to optimistically say it'll be every two weeks.


	3. Setting the Stage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rem and Subaru make plans and put them into motion. It goes well. Mostly. Two mice facing off against a cat are likely to lose more than they expect.

As with parenting, as with teaching, as with surviving as a refugee in a faraway land she brushed the tears away as soon as they stopped falling and stood up to face her problem. Subaru had asked if she was “okay” but at her nod he’d barreled straight into everything he knew about the upcoming attack, unaware the girl-her-who-was-no-more would not have known what “okay” meant. 

He was nervous at first, glancing at her like he didn’t really think she’d believe him, but as she sat there and listened he started to poor out the story quicker and quicker: where the attack would happen and finally, who. 

“I want to stop them,” he said drawing his hand into a fist, “but I don’t have the fighting strength.” He let his arm drop, fist coming undone as his shoulders sagged. “I have to start negotiating now to pull some together. Will you help me?”

That look in his eyes, filled with determination in the face of the impossible, it was so good to see it again. She smiled as she nodded. 

And he grinned a little before pulling his hand back and waving it around. “Here’s what I know: we are going to need help, more then you and me, help.”

“When alone in a dangerous place, the second thing is always to gather allies,” she echoed Spica. 

“Exactly! Wait…What’s the first?” said Subaru blinking up at her.

“Regroup in a quiet place,” she said with a smile. He glanced around as if only just realizing where they were. And then his eyes got big as it dawned on him their situation upon a secluded roof top had been intentional. “I suppose,” he said pulling his hand behind his neck, “it would be best if we didn’t have that conversation in the middle of the marketplace,” he half laughed before dropping his hand and pulling it into a fist, “But on to potential allies. We’re going to need a fighting force, someone with actual troops to back them up…”

“Local guards might not be sufficient,” Rem added. She wasn’t quite sure what the local guard would be able to do here, but she knew the ones in Karagari wouldn’t be able to stand up to the witches cult. “The knights might be but they are…”

“…not to fond of me at the moment,” Subaru finished. That, that was something she should know, something she had known when she was a girl. But it had been so long. 

She shoved the cold dread at the revelation that her future knowledge would not help her, “So private would be the best way to go,” she got out with a light smile. How much of the knowledge had she lost to the fog of time that would be essential to functioning now? She’d forgotten Crusch earlier, who had the other girls been? Priscilla, Emilia, Anastasia, and the other girl the new one. What else had she lost? Details about the house she’d kept, how the lord and lady liked their tea, Ram…What had Ram’s least favorite food been?

“…and that rules out Priscilla. I suppose that technically also rules out Reinhard. He’s a force onto himself but I’m not really willing to risk this on singular powerhouses. Not again. So that leaves Crusch, and Anastasia, they both are going to want something though.” She glanced back up at her hero, he had lost his faraway look and was now meeting her eyes “What do you think?”

Anastasia, she’d been queen of Lugnica in the future, all of Karagari knew that. All of Karagari told their little girls, “Look what you could grow into.” But Halible had provided more details about her life to the young couple, more personal moments, seeming to realize how they appreciated news of their home and people who they had once known. 

And Crusch. She’d forgotton all about her. What had she been? Who had she been? “What do you know about Crusch?” she asked the man who belonged in this timeline.

His eyes went wide and he grinned. “I know she’s trying to hunt the white whale.”

That explained why she had forgotten her but it didn’t bring up any more helpful memories. 

_“Military types always need more minerals,” her first grandchild, Vega, had said as he loaded stones onto his wagon. He’d be heading out first thing tomorrow to try his hand a trade. “I bet they will pay big dollar for my product if we can just expand out there.”_

_“And if no one sabotages your supply,” Rigel had said wandering in with a box full of assorted shinobi weapons that he placed on his son’s cart. “Those are always prime target for espionage cause armies can’t function without them.”_

_Vega picked up one of the kuni and turned it over in his hands, “I think I can handle it. I was raised by a shinobi you know,” he grinned with all the confidence of his eighteen years before playfully pretending to toss it at his father._

“They’ll want minerals,” she said. “They’ll be using up most of their resources on this attack.”

“Where would we get minerals? It’s not like we have any.” he said then he blinked. “Do we have any?”

Not on them. But that wasn’t what he meant. To interest Crusch military they’d need a lot, rights to mine on a land, only Lords had that. “Ro….Lord Roswaal would have rights to mining in his land….”

_A young girl with silver hair, the new lady, had shyly hovered while she cleaned a room whose details were faded by time. But she could still recall the solid crystal in her hands, shining so beautifully as she held it because then the girl had spoken for the first time since she’d arrived. “I keep that as a reminder of home, there are so many on my mountain.”_

“…forest is rich in resources. It would certainly interest them. But I’m not sure it would be enough, we might need something else…”

Subaru was suddenly digging through his pockets furiously, pulling out his “Phone,” and holding it up. “Like the date and time of the next White Whale attack?”

Oh.

_Vega had returned to them without half of his new friends. He returned quiet and withdrawn, less willing to talk, less willing to smile. Not even attempting to playfully argue about why the merchant life was better than the shinobi one with his younger siblings._

_“We lost people,” he’d whispered on night on top of their apartment roof, staring up into the sky like he was expecting something to come down. “We lost so many, and worse is I know we lost more. I know we lost more people grandma. We had all these extra blankets and pillows. We were so grateful to have them when we got to town, cause we had something to trade with, something to make up the losses. And we weren’t ready to part with the dead’s things just yet, the guys wanted to take those back to their families. But I asked around and none of the others had brought those ‘extra’ pillows. And I realized we’d already been selling the belongings of the dead, and hadn’t even realized it.”_

_“You did what you had to do to get by,” she’d told him pulling him into a hug. “And you couldn’t have brought those back to their families if you didn’t know who’s families they belonged to.”_

_He’d leaned into her and she’d thought they might be okay, maybe they’d pull through, when he spoke. “I…I found a ring hidden in my bag.”_

_She froze but kept patting his hair as she’d done when he’d been so much younger. “I don’t know who I was going to give it too, they’re gone Grandma. But I wouldn’t just have a ring that fancy unless it was going to someone special.” His voice broke. “I must have loved them. I must have loved them and I can’t remember them. I can’t even…” and he sobbed again._

_She’d held him as he sobbed cursing the Whale for taking this from her grandson. For giving him a regret he’d never be able to escape. She’d been so angry she’d felt her horn start to stir, as it had not done since Vega’s birth._

_She wanted that Whale dead. Like every other merchant family._

That anger, coupled with that information. 

That they could use.

The people who wanted the whale dead, extended far beyond Crusch. With the rising encouragement of trade between Lagunica and Karagari, more and more merchants traveled the lands between and lost themselves. Many attempted whale hunts for the sake of the safety of the trade routes. It was said that Anastasia had placed heavy bounties on it in hopes of securing an easier trade network and many young hopefuls had slough it for the riches such a bounty could bring. Others had done so for revenge. Rigel among them, even though his children had told him not to join their revenge quest. 

No one had succeeded.

They’d spent months searching and never even found the beast.

They’d gotten Tia involved and still nothing.

No one else had known where it would be. 

Knowledge of the whale’s location, was the type of security she’d longed everyday Vega had been on his first trading trip, anyway to ensure he was not near the whale’s path. She knew she’d have done anything to get her hands on it, and she knew far more would do that too. Especially after Vega returned, especially when Rigel and half her family started actively hunting it, when she’d wanted it dead too.

It was dangerous information, information that should be used carefully, but powerful information none the less. This sort of thing could seal any deal, and if used correctly it could gain fighters for the Whale hunt, more than what Crusch could offer them. 

The problem was that sort of information could not have come from Subaru’s phone. She knew how that worked, how to use it to “snap pics” and play funny music. That was all it could do because if it could track the White Whale, she knew her husband would have given it to Vega when he first headed out to trade internationally or when Rigel and his children had headed out for revenge. He had to have gotten the information from elsewhere. But still…

“Anastasia,” she said. “She’d pay good money, and maybe even private fighters for that information.”

“Anastasia?” said Subaru in confusion. “I was thinking Russell Fellows. I mean, he’s already involved, I believe,” he rubbed the back of his head again. “What would Anastasia have to gain from joining Crusch?”

“Same as Russell. Safety from the whale,” she said. She hoped the Russell he was referring to was the same as the name stamped on some goods in the market. A merchant would make the most sense but if not then she hoped Subaru didn’t notice the inconsistency of her memories. “All merchants what the end of the whale, they lose to many people and goods to it every year.”

Her hero’s eyes were suddenly flashing and he grinned over at her. Her heart did a little flutter at the intensity of his gaze. “Rem,” he said. “Rem we can set the stage! If we get Russell and Anastasia on our side, Crusch will have to join us!” 

“We’d have to get Anastasia on our side first,” Rem warned. “And Russell.” She was more worried about Russell, she barely remembered him, and knowledge that he was a merchant was not enough to negotiate, not with some one important enough that his influence could sway an queen’s candidate.

Subaru frowned a bit. “I think Russell’s already involved in some way, involved with Crusch at least. But he’s a merchant so he’ll…” he frowned.

“Want to know about the minerals?” suggested Rem. “That would be the opening to talk and then bring up the whale.” 

“Yeah,” said Subaru. “The minerals and upcoming alliance and how that’ll benefit him…yeah I think I could do that sales pitch.” He glanced over at her. “But what about Anastasia?”

“I’ll handle Anastasia, you handle Russell.” She dearly hoped it would be enough. She’d grown old in Karagari, and as of such could bargain well. But never had so much hinged on a bargain, and never had she gone up against the future queen of Lugnica, who was legend throughout all of Karagari for her ruthless struggle to the top. But she knew Subaru, if she remembered those early not-days correctly, was not ready to face the not-queen. And she was not ready to face Russell, not when she barely remembered what he did much less why he was so important.

They sought out Russell together and she drilled into Subaru all the merchant protocols she could remember. Subaru will carry the bulk of the negotiations as the face, while Rem stands behind for emotional support and to step in if she needs to. It’s a tactic that is itself a merchant protocol, used to train new members or to hide their true leaders. Vega had told her the first part, Spica the latter. 

But before they could mount the steps to a door with Russell’s name on it, Subaru turned around so fast he almost fell eyes trailing a small cat demihuman. “Follow her,” he whispered urgently. “She works for Anastasia!”

“I am not leaving you….” she’d begun but he’d half pushed her after the girl. 

“We don’t have the time to waste, not if we want to get the whale when it comes. I…” he glanced up at the steps to Russell’s office, eyes moving into an intense stare. “I can do this. And besides,” he turned to her with a grin. “You’re the one with the hard part.”

The girl, she thought she was a girl at least, lead her to Anastasia who, in true Karagari fashion, had reserved and entire restaurant for this confrontation. She wondered what Anastasia hoped to gain from this interaction. Information definitely, but what else?

The child as bait. The restaurant cleared but still the people had not changed their uniforms, either they were to appear intimidating or…or this trap had a specific person in mind. A person who Anastasia considered unobservant.

_“Did you know her?” said Spica’s youngest while doing her geography homework. “You’re from Lugnica. Did you know the queen?”_

_“Don’t be silly child,” she’d scolded. “There are many people in Lugnica. I have not met them all.”_

_“But grandpa did,” she’d said looking up at her. “Papa told me that. He said she scammed Grandpa and that her knight had beaten him in a duel…”_

Though clearly Anastasia had set this trap for another, and though Rem bristled internally at the slight against her hero, she took some pleasure in that Anastasia would be dealing with Rem now and not the one the trap was set for.

“I can’t help but notice you are without your friend,” Anastasia continued cheerfully, after the established pleasantries.

“He had business,” Rem replied as demurely as she could. Anastasia would be more cautious now, dealing with an unknown, best to play up the dutiful maid. 

“Business with Russell Fellows?” said Anastasia stirring her tea, “What business could the Emilia faction have with him?” The emphasis on Emilia was not lost on Rem. _She must want to know if we are doing this for Emilia or Crusch._

“A venture,” said Rem. “One I’m sure you’re already familiar with.”

Anastasia leaned forward on her hands, “Enlighten me.”

“Oh I wouldn’t dare assume you didn’t know already of the goings on among those of Crusch’s camp, nor their aim or how its completion would be of interest to you,” Rem calmly replied. “Nor the scope that such an endeavor has brough into its fold.”

“Oh I know,” said Anastasia with a nod of her head, still leaning forward. “But I also know the risks such a venture would bring,” she spread out her hands, “and for such little reward for the Emilia faction.” And though her words were light, her eyes warned Rem that Anastasia had been at this game a long time, she would not show her hand without more to gain.

“It’s less what we have to gain, and more what we have to give,” Rem offered cautiously.

“And what you have to give is somehow tied to what you have to gain,” replied Anastasia. “For you have very little to give that would aid in the immediate endeavor certainly not in the way of manpower.” Rem suspected now was when others would let their eyes flick over to the surrounding members of Anastasia’s faction. She kept her gaze steady instead. “You might be able to compensate for some losses, but that would not be enough for Crusch’s favor.”

“You of all people should know the value of information,” said Rem. 

The slightest tilt of the head, “What sort of information?”

“Certainty,” said Rem keep any quiver from memories of sleepless nights worrying for Vega, and later Rigel and the rest, out of her mind, “something so rare in previous hunts.”

“Certainty?” echoed Anastasia with the slightest of raised eyebrows. “Now that is rare. Certainty of success has been said before, none have managed to succeed. What do you have that is so different?”

“The question is less what we have, and more what you would give to have it too.” The second she said it she saw something leave Anastasia’s eyes.

“Ahhh,” said Anastasia leaning back, “So it is my aid and my armies that she’s after.” Her whole demeanor relaxed. 

In negotiations one only relaxed when the deal was completed, or you thought it was completed. “No,” said Rem. “It is your aid and your armies that I am after, I and the one who has the certainty with him.”

“So it’s an object,” said Anastasia tapping her teacup with her spoon. “One that must give you something about the whale, a weakness perhaps?” She was losing her. Time to real her back in.

“A location,” said Rem watching Anastasia’s face, she was good but even she couldn’t hide a flicker of interest in her eyes. Rem leaned forward and let her voice drop to a whisper so that Anastasia had to lean forward to hear. “How much would you risk if you were certain of where the whale would attack? A true chance to be rid of it, once and for all?”

Anastasia leaned back again, but this time far less casually. She was considering. “How trustworthy the source? Locations can be used for traps, but what good does that do without a time to spring them…” she looked at Rem and smiled. “Oh of course, you must have that too.”

“Of course,” said Rem. “A time and a location. One time offer to take out the whale. Safe roads for you and your company, in return for joining the forces of Crusch and Emilia.”

“The forces of Emilia,” muses Anastasia. “And what forces can she lend?”

“Myself,” said Rem. “And Subaru.”

The very slightest flicker of a concealed laugh, “I’ve heard what that boy is capable of, and I doubt he’ll be of much help.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Rem biting back the fires of her youth. “He’s the one with the information after all.”

Anastasia raised her eyebrow. “And what would you be getting out of this?”

Here comes the tricky bit. “The destruction of another enemy who make the roads unsafe, the witch cult.”

She saw the moment Anastasia put two and two together. “Ahhh, the safety of the lady. But for such a price as the ladies life….”

“Should measure up to all the life’s you’ll save on the road with the destruction of both the whale and the witches cult,” Rem added quickly. “The profit you’ll make up should be equal the safety of the lady.”

Anastasia pressed her lips together and let out a hum. “The witch cult is as slippery a foe as the whale, if only a bit less dangerous,” she continued. “To even dream of being involved we’d need information.”

“Good,” Rem leaning forward again, “For we also have information on the time and date of the witch cults attack.”

“And how did you come by this information?” said Anastasia, eyes boring into Rem. 

“I’m afraid that’s a secret of ours,” said Rem leaning back. “If we are wrong there will be no whale, no witch cult, and all you will have lost is the half a day getting there,” she spread out one hand. “If we are right you will have no whale and no witch cult to bother you or your business,” she said as she spread out another hand.

Anastasia nodded slowly. “And if you are wrong you will tell us exactly how you found this information, so we might examine it for ourselves.”

“Of course,” said Rem. “But we will not be wrong.”

“Oh but that’s the thing isn’t it? Miraculous information on the location of two great dangers, within the span of a few days from the mouth of the candidacies man of mystery himself?” said Anastasia. “And then there’s you yourself, born and bred in Lugnica bartering like a Karagari citizen…”

“I’ve had an extensive education,” said Rem carefully.

And Anastasia smiled. “An education does not make an accent.”

Oh

Oh No.

_“Did you hear?” people all around her whispered. “Did you hear about the new queen of Lugnica?”_

_“Born here,” they whispered. “Accent and everything.”_

_“One of us,” they whispered. “Just hear her talk and you can tell.”_

_She’d glanced to the side at her husband’s thin smile and clenched fist. “Let’s go home,” she said wincing at the vowels that had started to shift to the Karagari’s harsher sounds. “We don’t need potatoes that badly.”_

Anastasia seemed to read her shock because she let up on the smile and leaned in. “Should the whale really show up when you say, I will gladly lend my aid to defeat the witch cult. But if not, when you show me how you got this information, I want to know how you got your accent.”

“The whale will come,” said Rem. “Just as well, for you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Oh now you’ve intrigued me even more,” said Anastasia. “Even if the whale does not come, I’ll find this impossible secret of yours,” she smiled and let out a laugh, “I’m a greedy gal after all.”

Upon exiting the shop she found Subaru standing with Russell. Anastasia moved over to greet the merchant and the two begin to talk calmly of plans for the attack, both clearly trying to discern why the other had agreed. 

“How did it go?” she whispered to Subaru. He grimaced and quickly switched into his trademark grin that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Didn’t you hear what he just said? He’s going to be joining us no problem, so it doesn’t matter that I had to promise him my phone to get him to believe me.”

Oh

_One day when they’d been starving for the first time, he’d taken out his phone and showed it to her. He’d asked how much they could get for it. It was like nothing she’d seen before._

_“Where did you get it?” she’d said turning it over in her hands._

_“My home,” he’d said quietly and then in a lighter tone. “So no one’s ever going to have seen anything like it before. It’s one of a kind, that’s got to make it real valuable.”_

_He’d started then as she’d placed it back in his hands and closed his fingers around it. “We can get by,” she’d said firmly, “Halibel…he offered us to come over for dinner. There’s no need to do anything drastic.”_

_At least one of them should have something to remember home by._

“Do you want to talk about it…” she begins. But he shrugged it off.

“It’s just a phone, not like its much use. If I need to give it up to keep them all alive…” She met his eyes then, even though he was trying desperately to avoid them. She hoped it would be enough to show him that she knew. She understood.

Sacrifices had to be made for the brighter future.

_It will be worth it._

_It has to be._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t see Subaru as overly attached to his phone in canon, but in this world I would imagine Rem views it as a memento of a lost home, something she doesn’t have any more and would place more value on it. Leading too Subaru in that time line valuing it more in return. It becomes a family heirloom.
> 
> Vega is the name Subaru tells Rigel he almost named him but decided against it because it had a sad story attached to it (the cow heard and the weaver girl). I figured Rigel would hold onto the name and give it to his son, who therefor must have a tragic love story. 
> 
> Also the person Vega was engaged to was named Altair because that’s the star that Vega meets in the sky.
> 
> Hey remember when I said this was going to come out every two weeks? Good times.
> 
> I was going to have Crusch in this chapter, but Anastasia wanted her scene. So she got one. 
> 
> Next time: Crusch, Memories, and all important letters.

**Author's Note:**

> Does anyone know how to make these end notes stop going automatically to the end of work instead of staying on the first chapter?


End file.
